5th Column
Making amends with Modi’s India
View(s):My Dear Narendra Modi,
I am writing to congratulate you on your victory at the Indian elections, where they tell me that you have broken many records and emerged with a government where your party alone will have control of Parliament because you have an absolute majority. This is of course good news for us in Paradise because you seem to have decisively ended — at least for the time being — the rule of the Congress Party led by the Gandhis and sent that chap Manmohan into compulsory retirement.
Of course, it is not that we particularly dislike the Gandhis but whenever they are in power we seem to have difficulties: the Grand Old Lady Indira let Tigers train on Indian soil and her son air dropped parippu to the North in a bid to stop us fighting the war against the Tigers to a finish. The other reason why we particularly like your victory is that your BJP now has an absolute majority in Parliament. Not many people realise it, but our own Mahinda maama, for all his charm and popularity, has less than half the members of Parliament from his Blue party!
So, when jokers like Wimal or principled chaps like Champika make dissenting noises, he has to sit up and take note because that threatens his hold on power. With an absolute majority in Parliament, you wouldn’t have such headaches to deal with, would you?
Why we on this side are thrilled about this is because this means that lady Jayalalithaa wouldn’t be able to twist your arm. Everyone knows she was hoping to form a coalition government with you and there was a time when she was even suggesting that she herself might be the Prime Minister!
This lovely lady likes to stir up issues on this side of the Palk Strait to win her own elections in Tamil Nadu and that is what she has been doing for the past twenty years because governments in India have been coalition governments which had to cling on to her saree pota for their survival.
The latest I heard from this lady was when she said yesterday that she hoped you would be ‘friendly’ towards her. Of course, being the smart politician that you are, I am sure you realise that she would have made a million other demands if you had to depend on her support to form a government!
The other reason I am happy that you have won is because we hope you would understand what Uncle Sam is trying to do in Geneva much more than Manmohan and his cronies who even went to the extent of taking Uncle Sam’s side and voting against us for two years.
That is because I heard that you too have been accused of Uncle Sam’s favourite crime, ‘human rights violations’ because of some incidents that happened years ago when you were the Chief Minister of Gujarat — and they have been hounding you since then, even going to the extent of refusing you a visa.
Well, now it looks like Barack will have to eat his own words and not only grant you a visa but also host you with a state visit. After all, the world’s most powerful democracy cannot afford to ignore the world’s largest democracy, can it?
Anyway we hope that, having had first-hand experience of what it means to be accused of human rights violations by the Americans, you will take the allegations being levelled against our country by Uncle Sam with a pinch of salt!
Of course, we know that just because you become the Prime Minister of our neighbouring country, that will not solve all our problems, of which there are many. But at least, we should be able to start afresh, allowing bygones to be bygones.
Just one bit of advice to you, though: how long you survive in office will depend on what kind of opposition you get. So, if you want to be in power for a long time you need to look at how the opposition works here — and you will be guaranteed at least a dozen years as Prime Minister.
You could start by getting young Rahul, the son of a former leader to make disparaging remarks about the current leader Manmohan. Then, if you can keep them bickering publicly while allowing Rahul to use certain media outlets for that, half your work is done. Believe me, this strategy works!
We must wish you well, Narendra, if only because we cannot ignore our large neighbour even if we wanted to. Judging by the manner in which your predecessors have dealt with us in the last few years, we believe that any change would be for the better!
Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS: I heard that Mahinda maama was one of the first to phone and congratulate you and invite you for a state visit. I can assure you, no matter how clever you are, you won’t be able to escape those telephone calls, especially on your birthday. Everyone who is someone gets one of those over here!